I was amused to notice the different treatment of the NCAA basketball championships this March. Where the men's team made the bottom of the front page (and prime time coverage on CBS), the women's team, which achieved the equivalent result the next evening (on another channel) had the announcement printed by the times as the third or fourth item on the "Sports Page", where the top article on the page concerned a competitor's coach in a puff piece. The unconscious lack of interest in the women's achievements was so obvious as to be embarrassing.
"All the news that's fit to print" means all the news editors deem important as filtered through their bigotries. This from a paper which editorialized that charging 10cents for plastic bags here in NYC was reasonable; their main product is paper, produced in polluting plants, loaded with carbon black and other pigments, which is trash within 24 hours of production. What a weird world we live in.
Wednesday, April 16, 2014
Tuesday, February 18, 2014
Snow, Driving, and Parking in NYC
It is our 16th (or so) snow storm, and the streets are clogged and narrowed by the enormous number of buried cars which remain immobile- they are plowed in and snow covered. The city keeps giving in on alternate side of the street parking regulations, not realizing that the narrowing of the streets by the cars forced to park ever further from the curb makes driving on two way streets worse than crossing one lane bridges in Vermont.
It's clear that the city should force the cars off the streets, at least for enough hours that they can plow to the curb, and then re-allow parking in the cleared spaces. Where to put the snow? Put it in one of the parking spaces on the street itself, as high as necessary, so that the other spots are cleared and the parking is as dense as possible.
Long term, they have to get the cars off the streets when parked. They have to charge for parking on city streets overnight and have to encourage off street parking by encouraging the building of garages, requiring new apartment houses to have an abundance of extra rental space available, and any other tactic that would make the streets free of immobile cars so traffic an flow.
It's clear that the city should force the cars off the streets, at least for enough hours that they can plow to the curb, and then re-allow parking in the cleared spaces. Where to put the snow? Put it in one of the parking spaces on the street itself, as high as necessary, so that the other spots are cleared and the parking is as dense as possible.
Long term, they have to get the cars off the streets when parked. They have to charge for parking on city streets overnight and have to encourage off street parking by encouraging the building of garages, requiring new apartment houses to have an abundance of extra rental space available, and any other tactic that would make the streets free of immobile cars so traffic an flow.
Thursday, October 10, 2013
New York State's Ineptitude
We received an letter from the state indicating that we needed to register for a discount on taxes based on having incomes less than $500K (STAR exemption). It said that elderly need no do anything. Then it said we had to do something. So we called (518)457-2036, and the site gave out the wrong URL. Then we found the right URL, and this site was only marginally adept at gathering its data. And when we tried to enter my brother in law's data, it refused, claiming we had an open window doing the same thing, when in fact we didn't. What a pain. Almost as bad as the DMV
Monday, March 18, 2013
New York Times letter (rejected)!
Sirs:
Sen. Portman's recent conversion (NYTimes, 3/15/2013) brings to mind a fundamental flaw in our government which is rarely discussed.Who did he represent when advocating the Defense of Marriage Act, and who does he represent now? In both cases it appears as if he represented only himself. Our representative government has become a sham. Elected officials think they've been anointed. Where the Supreme Court members can exercise their bigotries as they see fit, elected officials are supposed to, in some sense, represent their electorate; voting in opposition to that electorate is assumed to take place only in special circumstances usually involving conscience. Representative democracy is being destroyed and voting now becomes a task of choosing the least harmful among the gaggle of supplicants grasping for power.
Sen. Portman's recent conversion (NYTimes, 3/15/2013) brings to mind a fundamental flaw in our government which is rarely discussed.Who did he represent when advocating the Defense of Marriage Act, and who does he represent now? In both cases it appears as if he represented only himself. Our representative government has become a sham. Elected officials think they've been anointed. Where the Supreme Court members can exercise their bigotries as they see fit, elected officials are supposed to, in some sense, represent their electorate; voting in opposition to that electorate is assumed to take place only in special circumstances usually involving conscience. Representative democracy is being destroyed and voting now becomes a task of choosing the least harmful among the gaggle of supplicants grasping for power.
Wednesday, February 20, 2013
Things are just plain wrong in government
Today, for the fourth time, we went to the library searching for tax forms for the 2012 filing period. To our chagrin, again, they were not there. Not only the forms, but the appropriate booklets that contain worksheets that are required for filling out the forms, were missing. The librarian said that the IRS, when called, had told people to go to the library to get their forms. Too bad.
Heaven help you if you file your income tax late. Not only is the tax law incomprehensible, but it is not available for us to read, criticize, follow, etc..
So I called the IRS, and stayed on hold for 20 minutes before talking to a human, The booklet will be arriving within 10 days, they hope. Hurrah, a small triumph
How odd it is that the face of government, which is irrelevant to most of us during our daily lives, should be so poor that the few times we deal with it we feel that we’d rather have our wisdom teeth extracted without anesthetic. Consider the DMV. OK, don’t, it’s too painful. Rather consider the post office, where, at least in Forest Hills, doing business can be daunting.
You would think that the intrinsic inefficiencies of government bureaucracies would be offset by the recognition that these inefficiencies need to be hidden from the view of the general public who, after all, are paying for the whole mess. But even here,, where common sense should prevail, we have incompetence. With no one to blame, no one to take responsibility (and not just at the word level, but at the action level) the citizenry remains voiceless and toothless. If the government were a business, it would be bankrupt; but “too large to fail” has special meaning in this case, for who could bail it out?
Complaining, as I’m doing, is generally scorned as irrelevant unless accompanied by “suggestions” for curing the problem, but in this case, where suggestions have novenue, complaining at least is cathartic.
Heaven help you if you file your income tax late. Not only is the tax law incomprehensible, but it is not available for us to read, criticize, follow, etc..
So I called the IRS, and stayed on hold for 20 minutes before talking to a human, The booklet will be arriving within 10 days, they hope. Hurrah, a small triumph
How odd it is that the face of government, which is irrelevant to most of us during our daily lives, should be so poor that the few times we deal with it we feel that we’d rather have our wisdom teeth extracted without anesthetic. Consider the DMV. OK, don’t, it’s too painful. Rather consider the post office, where, at least in Forest Hills, doing business can be daunting.
You would think that the intrinsic inefficiencies of government bureaucracies would be offset by the recognition that these inefficiencies need to be hidden from the view of the general public who, after all, are paying for the whole mess. But even here,, where common sense should prevail, we have incompetence. With no one to blame, no one to take responsibility (and not just at the word level, but at the action level) the citizenry remains voiceless and toothless. If the government were a business, it would be bankrupt; but “too large to fail” has special meaning in this case, for who could bail it out?
Complaining, as I’m doing, is generally scorned as irrelevant unless accompanied by “suggestions” for curing the problem, but in this case, where suggestions have novenue, complaining at least is cathartic.
Wednesday, May 20, 2009
Heine and my father's "Alt und ..."
How do you know you're Jewish?
The recent rabbinical ruling that the (born Christian and Danish) convert who divorced from her Israeli husband was never Jewish makes one wonder.
I can remember asking my wife how she knew I was Jewish, and getting no answer. But she said that her brother had a "bris" card which certified that her brother had had a kosher "bris". Me, I had nothing, nada, gar nichts!
So, am I Jewish?
So, I asked my 92 year old mother who can barely remember the pain I caused her many years ago (and since, but that's different). She answered that I was born in the Jüdische Krankenhaus in Hamburg, which had a special room for "bris"ing. Did I have a mohel I asked? She didn't know. She wasn't permitted to see the "bris". My grandfather Albert held me. He was an MD himself, so perhaps he actually did the dirty deed, but my mother claims (on no evidence) that he just held me down. So, who did it? I don't know, and never will.
When I ask her how I'm to prove I'm Jewish, she sheepishly says something equivalent to "drop you drawers" and then blushes. So old fashioned.
But when I was young, and the world was simpler, when the second World War had just ended, and "never again" had not yet been said, I was a lefty-liberal arguing about how the good German Christians could have looked away while their Jewish neighbors were annihilated. Now I know, but then I didn't, and even then, I obsessed about what would happen when they looked away here, in the good old US of A? In 1948, Israel offered an answer, i.e., a safe haven to flee to should the worst come true here. All you had to be was ..., Jewish!
Ah, said someone, there's the rub!
With the fashion of circumcision penetrating the larger (goyish, presumably American) world, "pulling down you pants" was no answer.
Now I'm no expert in this area, having seen very few penises other than my own, but I suspect that the difference between a therapeutic circumcision and a mohel's swift clean schneid is not that great. To an undiscerning observer like me most likely the differences are nil. So does Israel accept anyone with a circumcised penis? Of course not.
Oi, how to think this through?
Ah, I thought, I've got a "bris" kiddush cup that was brought from Germany in 1938. It has my name on it. Of course the engraver misspelled my name, but what the devil.
Oh, I forgot, it didn't include my Hebrew name, and it didn't include my "bris" date, which should have been 8 days after my emergence into the (good?) German air.
My mother claims that I had a bris, but she wasn't in the room, and doesn't know if a mohel did the job or a doctor colleague of my grandfather.
According to my father, I was born in a hospital which had inscribed on it (somewhere, according to my father) "Alt und arm und krank und Jüde, ein vier fach Katastrophe". Perhaps this was a family joke, although I note that my sister used almost the same quote in a book of hers (she claimed it was a bastardization of a poem Heine (1841) wrote:
So, I've got no documentary evidence of my "bris". My bar mitzvah took place in a reform synagogue, so I guess its null and void. My wedding took place in the same reform Temple, so I guess my wife is living in sin (as am I, I suppose). Oi. And my children. Well, I can at least stand up and say that I saw his "bris" and I met his mohel. Was it kosher? We have no bris card! We thought so, but now, given the higher standards, perhaps not. After all, the Danish lady's children, brought up Jewish, are now, post hoc ergo propter hoc, goyish. How strange. How deranged.
As for my daughter, my wife, my mother, etc., I've just got their word that they were born of Jewish mothers (which used to make you automatically Jewish). No circumcision for them, that's for damn sure.
Maybe Heine was right about the plague of being Jewish. Certainly choosing it is meshugah.
Maybe the Germans were right; you're Jewish if a "real" German says you are.
The recent rabbinical ruling that the (born Christian and Danish) convert who divorced from her Israeli husband was never Jewish makes one wonder.
I can remember asking my wife how she knew I was Jewish, and getting no answer. But she said that her brother had a "bris" card which certified that her brother had had a kosher "bris". Me, I had nothing, nada, gar nichts!
So, am I Jewish?
So, I asked my 92 year old mother who can barely remember the pain I caused her many years ago (and since, but that's different). She answered that I was born in the Jüdische Krankenhaus in Hamburg, which had a special room for "bris"ing. Did I have a mohel I asked? She didn't know. She wasn't permitted to see the "bris". My grandfather Albert held me. He was an MD himself, so perhaps he actually did the dirty deed, but my mother claims (on no evidence) that he just held me down. So, who did it? I don't know, and never will.
When I ask her how I'm to prove I'm Jewish, she sheepishly says something equivalent to "drop you drawers" and then blushes. So old fashioned.
But when I was young, and the world was simpler, when the second World War had just ended, and "never again" had not yet been said, I was a lefty-liberal arguing about how the good German Christians could have looked away while their Jewish neighbors were annihilated. Now I know, but then I didn't, and even then, I obsessed about what would happen when they looked away here, in the good old US of A? In 1948, Israel offered an answer, i.e., a safe haven to flee to should the worst come true here. All you had to be was ..., Jewish!
Ah, said someone, there's the rub!
With the fashion of circumcision penetrating the larger (goyish, presumably American) world, "pulling down you pants" was no answer.
Now I'm no expert in this area, having seen very few penises other than my own, but I suspect that the difference between a therapeutic circumcision and a mohel's swift clean schneid is not that great. To an undiscerning observer like me most likely the differences are nil. So does Israel accept anyone with a circumcised penis? Of course not.
Oi, how to think this through?
Ah, I thought, I've got a "bris" kiddush cup that was brought from Germany in 1938. It has my name on it. Of course the engraver misspelled my name, but what the devil.
Oh, I forgot, it didn't include my Hebrew name, and it didn't include my "bris" date, which should have been 8 days after my emergence into the (good?) German air.
My mother claims that I had a bris, but she wasn't in the room, and doesn't know if a mohel did the job or a doctor colleague of my grandfather.
According to my father, I was born in a hospital which had inscribed on it (somewhere, according to my father) "Alt und arm und krank und Jüde, ein vier fach Katastrophe". Perhaps this was a family joke, although I note that my sister used almost the same quote in a book of hers (she claimed it was a bastardization of a poem Heine (1841) wrote:
Translated by Hal Draper.)
"Ein Hospital für arme, kranke Juden,
Für Menschenkinder, welche dreifach elend,
Behaftet mit den bösen drei Gebresten:
Mit Armut, Körperschmerz und Judentum!1
A hospital for sick and needy Jews,
For those poor mortals who are trebly wretched,
With three great evil maladies afflicted:
With poverty and pain and Jewishness.
...
So, I've got no documentary evidence of my "bris". My bar mitzvah took place in a reform synagogue, so I guess its null and void. My wedding took place in the same reform Temple, so I guess my wife is living in sin (as am I, I suppose). Oi. And my children. Well, I can at least stand up and say that I saw his "bris" and I met his mohel. Was it kosher? We have no bris card! We thought so, but now, given the higher standards, perhaps not. After all, the Danish lady's children, brought up Jewish, are now, post hoc ergo propter hoc, goyish. How strange. How deranged.
As for my daughter, my wife, my mother, etc., I've just got their word that they were born of Jewish mothers (which used to make you automatically Jewish). No circumcision for them, that's for damn sure.
Maybe Heine was right about the plague of being Jewish. Certainly choosing it is meshugah.
Maybe the Germans were right; you're Jewish if a "real" German says you are.
- Ein Hospital für arme, kranke Juden,
Für Menschenkinder, welche dreifach elend,
Behaftet mit den bösen drei Gebresten:
Mit Armut, Körperschmerz und Judentum!
Das schlimmste von den dreien ist das letzte,
Das tausendjährige Familienübel,
Die aus dem Niltal mitgeschleppte Plage,
Der altägyptisch ungesunde Glauben.
Unheilbar tiefes Leid! Dagegen helfen
Nicht Dampfbad, Dusche, nicht die Apparate
Der Chirugie, noch all die Arzneien,
Die dieses Haus den siechen Gästen bietet.
Wird einst die Zeit, die ew'ge Göttin, tilgen
Das dunkle Weh, das sich vererbt vom Vater
Herunter auf den Sohn, - wird einst der Enkel
Genesen und vernünftig sein und glücklich?
Ich weiß es nicht! Doch mittlerweile wollen
Wir preisen jenes Herz, das klug und liebreich
Zu lindern suchte, was der Lind'rung fähig,
Zeitlichen Balsam träufelnd in die Wunden.
Der treue Mann! Er baute hier ein Obdach
Für Leiden, welche heilbar durch die Künste
Des Arztes (oder auch des Todes!), sorgte
Für Polster, Labetrank, Wartung und Pflege -
Ein Mann der Tat, tat er, was eben tunlich;
Für gute Werke gab er hin den Taglohn
Am Abend seines Lebens, menschenfreundlich,
Durch Wohltun sich erholend von der Arbeit.
Er gab mit reicher Hand - doch reich're Spiende
Entrollte manchmal seinem Aug' - die Träne,
Die kostbar schöne Träne, die er weinte
Ob der unheilbar großen Brüderkrankhiet. - The worst of these three evils is the last one,
The thousand-year-old family affliction,
The plague they carried from the grim Nile valley,
The old Egyptian faith so long unhealthful.
Incurable deep-seated hurt! No treatment
By vapour bath or douche can help to heal it,
No surgery, nor all the medications,
This hospital can offer to its patients.
Will Time, eternal goddess, some day end it,
Root out this black misfortune that the fathers
Hand down to sons? And some day will the grandsons
Be healed and whole, and rational and happy?
I do not know! But meanwhile let us honour
The heart that sought so lovingly and wisely
To soften the afflictions one can soften,
By pouring timely balm upon the lesions.
The worthy man! He builded here a refuge
For sufferings the doctors' arts could physic -
Or death's could cure, as well! - providing
For beds, refreshments, care, and tender nursing.
A man of deeds, he did what could be done;
A day's wage for good works this man devoted
In his life's evening, out of love of mankind,
To find relief from toil in benefaction.
He gave with open hand - but gifts still richer
Rolled from his eyes at times, the precious teardrops,
The lovely teardrops that he wept lamenting
The great incurable malady of his brothers.
Catastrophe Awaits
The following letter to the editor appeared in the trade journal C & E News:
"Catastrophe Awaits:
"Catastrophe Awaits:
RUDY BAUM makes some important observations relative to the use of the atmosphere as a sewer for CO2 (C&EN, Feb. 9, page 3). Another problem may be even more significant, however: the exponential growth of the world's population, which because of religious and cultural constraints, may be uncontrollable, except by nature.
The world's population doubles every 30 to 50 years, which means that more people are now alive than have ever lived. It means that by 2050, the population will double to about 12 billion. Even now, people are living in less and less hospitable locations and are more subject to disastrous floods, tsunamis, mudslides, droughts, and earthquakes. Three-quarters of the people in developing countries do not have a suitable water supply.
More people mean more pollution in the form of carbon dioxide from burning carbon-containing fuels, sewage, toxic metals, and materials from manufacturing and from discarded products. These factors, in turn, upset the natural environment, and we are beginning to see results such as global warming and loss of species.
Meanwhile, the percentage of land devoted to agriculture is decreasing continuously. Sooner or later, food production will be overtaken by population growth. Profligate use of natural resources such as oil, iron, nickel, and other metals will render such resources extremely scarce. This, combined with the rapid increase in population, will bring shortages and much higher prices for those goods that are available.
People in China and India, in particular, are tasting the fruits of modern technology and demanding automobiles, air-conditioning, TVs, cellular phones, and other gadgets. Demand for energy (oil) in these countries is growing rapidly and will continue to grow. Unfortunately, environmental sensitivity in the developing world is often minimal, and even now, dumping and burning electronic waste from discarded computers and cell phones, etc., is a major problem in China and Africa. Factor in the current worldwide recession, and the problems become even more challenging.
Solutions to these problems are neither easy nor obvious. If population growth were to stand still, we could probably work through today's problems by using windmill power, alcohol fuels, and so on. But it won't stand still, and it's unlikely that anything significant will be done. We may rest assured that the laws of nature will prevail whether or not we do anything. The outlook is grim, but shouldn't these challenges be confronted?"
A. Lee Smith
Howell, Mich
taken from Chemical & Engineering News, May 11, 2009, page 2.
::::::::::::::::comments:
In teaching freshmen, especially non-majors, I've found that their interest in the ultimate demise of their lives and way of life does not effect them at all. They are utterly indifferent.
As usual, short term interests trump everything!
"Some one else will take care of the problem." "The problem is a fake; there;s really nothing wrong."
For people of a certain age, who see the real future with crystal clarity, i.e., their own demise, this innocent stupidity is just that; the words of the ignorant and those incapable of thinking.
Woe unto my children and grandchldren.
::::::::::::::::comments:
In teaching freshmen, especially non-majors, I've found that their interest in the ultimate demise of their lives and way of life does not effect them at all. They are utterly indifferent.
As usual, short term interests trump everything!
"Some one else will take care of the problem." "The problem is a fake; there;s really nothing wrong."
For people of a certain age, who see the real future with crystal clarity, i.e., their own demise, this innocent stupidity is just that; the words of the ignorant and those incapable of thinking.
Woe unto my children and grandchldren.
Tuesday, April 21, 2009
Ideology trumps Intellect
The following letter showed up in the Chronicle of Higher Education
It is interesting to read the above from the point of view of an academic scientist whose life has been spent in research and teaching. Clearly, the Nobel prize in economics should be abolished, when the two sides of an economic debate can not come to closure.
Oddly enough, both sides appear wrong to me. The left, arguing for more regulation since less regulation led to the problem, and the right arguing that offering cheap loans caused the problem. Apparently, the middle ground, that banks offered loans recklessly since they'd discovered securitization which allowed them to sell the loans, wash their hands of the risk, and continue making poorer and poorer loans risk free, is ignored by the ideologues.
Certainly, the government wanted more loans made to poorer people, encouraging home ownership to stabilize neighborhoods, making people have a stake in their own local environment. Certainly, the lack of regulation (especially concerning risky loans) existed. But loaning someone else's money rather than your own, which is what, de facto, the banks did, is what seems to be the problem.
What was broken can not be fixed by more or less regulation, more or less "cheap" money. What is needed is that the banks make prudent loans because they can not offload the risk elsewhere. It is the offloading which severed the umbilical cord between loaning money and getting the loan repaid.
Ideology is perverse in preventing thinking!
To the Editor:
Christopher Phelps's essay cannot go without comment. Phelps asserts, apropos of the current economic turmoil, "The recent riot of capitalist irresponsibility has shattered the fantasy that the free market, left to its own devices, will automatically produce rationality and prosperity." He also contends that what he calls the conservative position regarding the New Deal "ought, by all rights, to be on the ropes."
More indefensible claims have never been made. Phelps, a historian, simply doesn't know what he's talking about.
Ever since the economic implosion began, the standard line from statist politicians and intellectuals has been that it was due to "laissez-faire ideology" and deregulation. That notion has been refuted over and over. The great economic bubble could never have arisen but for an array of government interventions that caused artificially low interest rates and then steered most of that money into the housing sector. The Federal Reserve is a nonmarket actor. Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac are government-sponsored enterprises that gave investors the impression that the securities they issued were backed by the federal government. The Community Reinvestment Act and the political mania for maximizing the number of people owning rather than renting was equally a creation of politics, not the market.
How those and other federal interventions created the conditions for the housing bubble has been frequently demonstrated; for example, in Steven Horwitz's "An Open Letter to my Friends on the Left" (http.7/myslu.stlawu.edu/~shorwitz/ open_letter.htm).
What many economists have to understand is that whenever the government promotes artificially cheap money and credit, the result is to distort the pattern of investment and resource allocation in the economy. We get overexpansion in those sectors of the economy most sensitive to interest rates, such as housing. Cheap credit leads to, as the Austrian economists Ludwig von Mises and Fricdrich Hayek explained, malinvestrnents that cannot be sustained in the long run. Far from putting that argument "on the ropes," the events of the Great Depression and of our current recession strongly confirm it.
Blaming laissez-faire capitalism for the consequences of government interference with our system of money and credit, with the standards of lending institutions, and with many other aspects of the free market's allocation of resources, is an egregious case of blaming the victim.
GEORGE C. LEEF
Director of Research
John William Pope Center
for Higher Education Policy
Raleigh, N.C.
It is interesting to read the above from the point of view of an academic scientist whose life has been spent in research and teaching. Clearly, the Nobel prize in economics should be abolished, when the two sides of an economic debate can not come to closure.
Oddly enough, both sides appear wrong to me. The left, arguing for more regulation since less regulation led to the problem, and the right arguing that offering cheap loans caused the problem. Apparently, the middle ground, that banks offered loans recklessly since they'd discovered securitization which allowed them to sell the loans, wash their hands of the risk, and continue making poorer and poorer loans risk free, is ignored by the ideologues.
Certainly, the government wanted more loans made to poorer people, encouraging home ownership to stabilize neighborhoods, making people have a stake in their own local environment. Certainly, the lack of regulation (especially concerning risky loans) existed. But loaning someone else's money rather than your own, which is what, de facto, the banks did, is what seems to be the problem.
What was broken can not be fixed by more or less regulation, more or less "cheap" money. What is needed is that the banks make prudent loans because they can not offload the risk elsewhere. It is the offloading which severed the umbilical cord between loaning money and getting the loan repaid.
Ideology is perverse in preventing thinking!
| Christopher Phelps's essay cannot go without comment. Phelps asserts, apropos of the current economic turmoil, "The recent riot of capitalist irresponsibility has shattered the fantasy that the free market, left to its own devices, will automatically produce rationality and prosperity." He also contends that what he calls the conservative position regarding the New Deal "ought, by all rights, to be on the ropes." | |
| More indefensible claims have never been made. Phelps, a historian, simply doesn't know what he's talking about. | Clearly (to me), the Nobel prize in economics should be abolished, when the two sides of an economic debate can not come to closure. |
| Ever since the economic implosion began, the standard line from statist politicians and intellectuals has been that it was due to "laissez-faire ideology" and deregulation. That notion has been refuted over and over. The great economic bubble could never have arisen but for an array of government interventions that caused artificially low interest rates and then steered most of that money into the housing sector. The Federal Reserve is a nonmarket actor. Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac are government-sponsored enterprises that gave investors the impression that the securities they issued were backed by the federal government. The Community Reinvestment Act and the political mania for maximizing the number of people owning rather than renting was equally a creation of politics, not the market. | Generally, impressions are not enough to cause anything. Blaming the governmnet policy seems counter-intuitive. Their argument, if memory serves me right, is that putting roots into a community, i.e., owning property, would stabilize neighborhoods and prevent continuing decay. One has to argue against that idea, not the ultimate economic error, if one is to have sanity in this debate. |
| How those and other federal interventions created the conditions for the housing bubble has been frequently demonstrated; for example, in Steven Horwitz's "An Open Letter to my Friends on the Left" (http.7/myslu.stlawu.edu/~shorwitz/ open_letter.htm). | Horowitz also doesn't address the idea that no one forced banks to lend inappropriately (and offload the risk to others). |
| What many economists have to understand is that whenever the government promotes artificially cheap money and credit, the result is to distort the pattern of investment and resource allocation in the economy. We get overexpansion in those sectors of the economy most sensitive to interest rates, such as housing. Cheap credit leads to, as the Austrian economists Ludwig von Mises and Fricdrich Hayek explained, malinvestrnents that cannot be sustained in the long run. Far from putting that argument "on the ropes," the events of the Great Depression and of our current recession strongly confirm it. | Certainly, the government wanted more loans made to poorer people, encouraging home ownership to stabilize neighborhoods, making people have a stake in their own local environment. Certainly, the lack of regulation (especially concerning risky loans) existed. But loaning someone else's money rather than your own, which is what, de facto, the banks did, is what seems to be the problem. |
| Blaming laissez-faire capitalism for the consequences of government interference with our system of money and credit, with the standards of lending institutions, and with many other aspects of the free market's allocation of resources, is an egregious case of blaming the victim. | Egregious? When left to its own devices, laissez-faire capitalism moves money up the ladder, from the poor to the wealthy. The disparity in wealth seems proof that this is true, at least over the last few decades. Belief in the "free market" means that departments of weights and measures are irrelevant (which is absurd). The truly free market cheats whenever and where ever it can, when there are puny punishments available for cheating and knowledge of cheating is localized. |
Wednesday, December 17, 2008
Financial Crisis Augers Ill for Future
Friedman, New York Times, Dec 17, 2008, hits the nail on the head here, in many ways.
Unfortunately, he neglects mentioning the anti-Robin Hood nature of the original Ponzi scheme of the mortgage industry, which was, to steal from the poor and give that money to the already rich. The mortgages that today are called "toxic" had terrible interest rates (ultimately) which would have floated money up the financial tree from "the poor" to "the affluent".
The world is insane, and the future is bleak.
Unfortunately, he neglects mentioning the anti-Robin Hood nature of the original Ponzi scheme of the mortgage industry, which was, to steal from the poor and give that money to the already rich. The mortgages that today are called "toxic" had terrible interest rates (ultimately) which would have floated money up the financial tree from "the poor" to "the affluent".
The world is insane, and the future is bleak.
Wednesday, December 10, 2008
Management 101
I've just returned from bureaucratic defeat, and have come to realize that the first thing that must be taught in management school is to support your underlings until you're ready to ax them. Up to that point, back them up, no matter what bad things they do, no matter who is harmed, back them up, back them up, back them up. Then, later, get rid of them when you're convinced that they've done something inconsistent with the institution's goals. Don't rectify their errors, their immoral acts, nothing, until you've been harmed. The devil take those trampled during the process.
Thursday, November 20, 2008
Treasury Follies
"Decisions by the Secretary pursuant to the authority of this Act are non-reviewable and committed to agency discretion, and may not be reviewed by any court of law or any administrative agency."
This extraordinary statement (and what does "committed to agency discretion" mean?) in Secretary Paulson's request for bailout funds, and the subsequent results of his actions vis-a-vis the actual economy makes one wonder about the egos of these people, these giants of industry, who deem themselves fit to run our affairs.
One sees this clearly when the CEO's of "the big three" auto makers fly into Washington on private jets to beg for help cleaning up the messes they've made. Not only are they full of themselves, but they're tone deaf. Their pleas for their workers jobs are also pleas for maintaining their own exalted status.
Oh woe is us!
This extraordinary statement (and what does "committed to agency discretion" mean?) in Secretary Paulson's request for bailout funds, and the subsequent results of his actions vis-a-vis the actual economy makes one wonder about the egos of these people, these giants of industry, who deem themselves fit to run our affairs.
One sees this clearly when the CEO's of "the big three" auto makers fly into Washington on private jets to beg for help cleaning up the messes they've made. Not only are they full of themselves, but they're tone deaf. Their pleas for their workers jobs are also pleas for maintaining their own exalted status.
Oh woe is us!
Thursday, September 25, 2008
Teaching morphs into training
We're well into the Fall semester, and I'm teaching two freshmen courses (Ouch. The punishment continues unabated). The normal one seems OK, except that it's clear that no one in the room wants to learn the material. They're just there for the credentials, the stamp of "learning" required so they can continue on with their training. Engineers mostly, they are not interested in anything.
My other class, for nurses, is a strange group. They need high grades to be admitted to nursing school, but they're math averse, and technically incompetent (that doesn't mean that they can't use technology; they can use it but they just don't care how or why it works). They are taught, by me, typical problems, and then asked to solve similar problems on exams. At the end, they forget the problems, forget the concepts, forget everything, and plod on. This is a silly exercise. I pretend to teach and they pretend to learn.
What we've done is convert education into a very poor form of training, and the pre-training consists of forcing people to jump through hoops to "prove" that they can "do it", i.e., have the internal fortitude to struggle through in spite of the stupidity of it all. Perhaps the exercise is needed to "prove adulthood"? Stupidity incarnate!
My other class, for nurses, is a strange group. They need high grades to be admitted to nursing school, but they're math averse, and technically incompetent (that doesn't mean that they can't use technology; they can use it but they just don't care how or why it works). They are taught, by me, typical problems, and then asked to solve similar problems on exams. At the end, they forget the problems, forget the concepts, forget everything, and plod on. This is a silly exercise. I pretend to teach and they pretend to learn.
What we've done is convert education into a very poor form of training, and the pre-training consists of forcing people to jump through hoops to "prove" that they can "do it", i.e., have the internal fortitude to struggle through in spite of the stupidity of it all. Perhaps the exercise is needed to "prove adulthood"? Stupidity incarnate!
Monday, March 31, 2008
Teaching versus Education?
My wife and I have been discussing this vis-a-vis a friend's daughter who recently returned from her mandated charity work overseas (a very private school kind of thing) and spent almost as much on her junior prom as she did on her South American required "good work" for the poor of this world. The argument about doing one's hair professionally, having makeup applied professionally, and doing everything else that her spoiled classmates required told us about a world spinning out of control, in which the wealthy have lost sight of all values, and the not-so-wealthy are caught up in the maelstrom of their angst, and swept along knowing better (for their children).
Odd how this misses the boat. What was taught? That kissing themselves and leaving telltale marks thereof was unhygenic? Neither teaching nor educating!
According to a news report, a certain private school in Washington was recently
faced with a unique problem. A number of 12-year-old girls had begun to use lipstick and would put it on in the bathroom. That was fine, but after they put on their lipstick they would press their lips to the mirror leaving dozens of little lip prints. Every night the maintenance man would remove them and the next day the girls would put them back.
Finally the principal decided that something had to be done. She called all the girls to the bathroom and met them there with the maintenance man.
She explained that all the lip prints were causing a major problem for the maintenance man who had to clean the mirrors every night (you can just imagine the yawns from the little princesses). To demonstrate how difficult it was to clean the mirrors, she asked the maintenance man to show the girls how much effort was required.
He took out a long-handled squeegee, dipped it in the toilet, and cleaned the
mirror with it. Since then, there have been no lip prints on the mirror.
There are teachers.... and then there are educators.
Odd how this misses the boat. What was taught? That kissing themselves and leaving telltale marks thereof was unhygenic? Neither teaching nor educating!
Wednesday, March 26, 2008
Savings & Loan versus SubPrime Mortgages
One starts to wonder about a governmental system which consistently favors the cheating rich over the simple proletariat. It seems reasonable that meltdowns should be avoided, since the unintended consequences are far reaching and possibly devastating. But the pain should not be ameliorated for the perpetrators. Or am I just plain wrong, and our duty is to support our betters?
Monday, March 17, 2008
died in vain
One of the arguments put forward to justify continuation of a war policy is that "our soldiers should not have died in vain". I remember seeing in Stuttgart a collection stand for "Opfer des Zweiten Weltkriegs" and I wondered, did they die in vain in Germany? in Italy? in Japan?
Thursday, March 13, 2008
Politically incorrect
"Over the course of my public life, I have insisted, I believe correctly, that people, regardless of their position or power, take responsibility for their conduct. I can and will ask no less of myself." Eliot Spitzer, March 2008.
Isn't it off-putting that getting caught creates the opportunity to pontificate? Where was this kind of statement before the revelations? And would it have been made had the revelations never been made? Without being holier than thou, one wonders whether or not one should assume a priori that everyone is NDG.
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